Danny Fonseca, 64, said he’s been unable to find any landlords willing to rent him a clean, affordable place to live since January because of his criminal record. A recent publication by several University of Texas at San Antonio researchers noted that sweeping housing policies banning all prospective tenants with criminal records could ultimately result in discrimination and violate the Fair Housing Act. less

Danny Fonseca, 64, said he’s been unable to find any landlords willing to rent him a clean, affordable place to live since January because of his criminal record. A recent publication by several University of ... more

Photo: Srijita Chattopadhyay /San Antonio Express-News

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“We are American people and we have right to own a place,” said Danny Fonseca, 64, who has been unable to find an apartment or room to rent since January because of his criminal record. Fonseca said he wants to start fresh, but his inability to find housing is denying him a new life. His last arrest was in 2012, and he was last released from jail in 2013. less

“We are American people and we have right to own a place,” said Danny Fonseca, 64, who has been unable to find an apartment or room to rent since January because of his criminal record. Fonseca said he ... more

Photo: Srijita Chattopadhyay /San Antonio Express-News

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Ernestina Ramirez Casares, 57, (left) met Danny Fonseca (right) when she was selling some of her things to pay for gas, food and a storage cabin. The pair are looking for an apartment or a residential space they can rent together. less

Ernestina Ramirez Casares, 57, (left) met Danny Fonseca (right) when she was selling some of her things to pay for gas, food and a storage cabin. The pair are looking for an apartment or a residential space ... more

Photo: Srijita Chattopadhyay /San Antonio Express-News

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“I want to get back into the mainstream of society. I want to be productive,” said Danny Fonseca, 64, who said he has been unable to find anyone willing to rent him a clean, affordable place to live because of his criminal record. Fonseca previously rented a room from a landlord who knew about his criminal history, but had to move out in January when the owner decided to sell the house. less

“I want to get back into the mainstream of society. I want to be productive,” said Danny Fonseca, 64, who said he has been unable to find anyone willing to rent him a clean, affordable place to live because ... more

Photo: Srijita Chattopadhyay /San Antonio Express-News

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Danny Fonseca, 64, talks about the difficulties he is having finding a place to live. Since January, he has been unable to find any landlords willing to rent him a clean, affordable living space because of his criminal record. His dilemma is a common one for former offenders who have finished their time in prison or jail. less

Danny Fonseca, 64, talks about the difficulties he is having finding a place to live. Since January, he has been unable to find any landlords willing to rent him a clean, affordable living space because of his ... more

Because of his criminal record, Fonseca, 64, has been unable to find anyone willing to rent him an affordable, clean place to live in San Antonio since January. He was last released from jail in 2013, completed his parole and received notice he can register to vote. But he has no apartment or home of his own.

“It’s sad and depressing. ... You can’t do nothing about it,” he said. “You wish things were different. You wish the policies were different.”

Fonseca’s dilemma is a common one for former offenders who have finished their time in prison and are trying to return to a normal life.

And that dilemma presents a potential legal land mine for housing providers since black and Hispanic men are arrested and incarcerated at higher rates than white men, research has shown.

Sweeping policies banning all prospective tenants with criminal records could ultimately result in discrimination and violate the Fair Housing Act, according to notices issued by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well as work published earlier this year by several University of Texas at San Antonio researchers.

“If you have a blanket ban, say, on all felonies, then you’re actually harming black men and also Hispanic men disproportionately because of that,” said Rebecca Walter, a UTSA assistant professor of urban and regional planning. She’s one of three researchers at the university who recently published an article in the journal Housing Policy Debate examining the issue.

HUD’s Office of General Counsel warned housing providers across the country last year of this potential for discrimination.

“While having a criminal record is not a protected characteristic under the Fair Housing Act, criminal history-based restrictions on housing opportunities violate the Act if, without justification, their burden falls more often on renters or other housing market participants of one race or national origin over another,” said the notice issued by HUD in April 2016.

The federal housing agency hasn’t issued any updates or bulletins on the topic since then, but that alert to housing providers last year prompted many public housing authorities to start re-evaluating their admission policies for people with criminal records.

The San Antonio Housing Authority is still reviewing its policy, a spokeswoman there confirmed.

HUD’s alert followed a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that housing providers could be held liable if their policies violate the Fair Housing Act — even if there is no intent to discriminate. That federal law protects people from discrimination when they try to rent or buy a place to live.

Almost all landlords conduct criminal background checks when evaluating whether to rent property to prospective tenants, Walter said. But Texas law does not require such a check for rental housing, she and her colleagues found.

And there’s not much literature or research to show that a criminal record — or lack of one — predicts what kind of tenant someone will be, she said.

“It’s amazing that criminal records are used across the board. But they don’t necessarily predict if a tenant’s going to be a successful tenant or not,” Walter said.

HUD has urged housing providers to move away from sweeping bans denying admission to people with any convictions, encouraging they instead consider the circumstances — how long ago those convictions occurred, the nature and the severity of those offenses and what the offender has done since getting into trouble.

The federal agency also pushed housing providers to consider convictions rather than arrests when evaluating a prospective tenant’s criminal history.

The article published earlier this year by Walter and two other UTSA researchers, assistant professor Jill Viglione and associate professor Marie Skubak Tillyer, attempts to provide guidance to public housing authorities trying to update their admission policies. Viglione has since left to work at another university.

Past research has shown that a former offender who has not committed a crime in seven years has the same odds of getting into trouble as someone with no criminal history, the authors reported.

“The likelihood of reoffending diminishes over time,” Walter said. “And after seven years, their likelihood (of getting in trouble) is just as much as somebody who has never committed a crime before.”

Applicants who have convictions within the last seven years should not automatically be denied admission, Walter and her colleagues noted. More factors should be considered, they suggested. Housing providers might consider whether those convicted of drug- and alcohol-related offenses have completed substance abuse treatment programs, they said. Training programs or letters of support from a supervising probation or parole officer might also be taken into account.

Public housing authorities might also consider who will be living with the convicted offender and if granting admission could strengthen that person’s family relationships, they said.

“The availability of safe, affordable housing that keeps families together can minimize the risk of recidivism,” the UTSA researchers noted in the article.

Previous federal laws in the 1980s and 1990s required public housing authorities to enact stricter admission and eviction policies. That stance relaxed somewhat in the past decade with President George W. Bush signing the Second Chance Act in 2008, a law aimed at helping former prisoners returning to society, and with the funding of numerous “re-entry” programs, the UTSA researchers reported.

Most people don’t realize that public housing authorities today have flexibility to design their own admission policies, Walter said. “They actually have a lot more leeway than most people realize,” she said.

Federal law imposes lifetime bans on only two types of offenders at federally subsidized housing properties — those convicted of manufacturing methamphetamine in federally assisted housing and sex offenders required to register for the rest of their lives.

Neither of those lifetime bans apply to Fonseca, the San Antonio man unable to find a place to live. He also has no record of violent crime, but his past haunts him nonetheless.

Fonseca said he has been to prison four times. In 1991, he received his harshest punishment, 23 years in prison for delivery of heroin, records show. He was released on mandatory supervision in 2004, a Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman said. Fonseca said his last arrest happened in 2012 when a misdemeanor shoplifting case was enhanced to felony theft because of his prior convictions. For that, he served seven months in jail.

He also has a history of older theft and burglary convictions dating back to the 1970s, records show.

Fonseca said he previously rented a room from a landlord who knew about his criminal history. But he had to move out in January after the landlord decided to sell the house.

After one of his rental applications was denied during his search for a new place, Fonseca said he started telling landlords upfront about his criminal history so he wouldn’t waste money submitting more applications that might be rejected.

He also visited several addresses on a list of housing options provided by the Bexar County Re-entry Program, which assists former offenders returning to the local area after incarceration, but said he became discouraged when he found those places to be unlivable, unsanitary and unreasonably overpriced.

The county program noted it does not have any control over landlords, how much rent they charge or the conditions of the places those landlords rent, but said it can remove a property from its resources list if presented with evidence of adverse living conditions.

“We are advocates for our clients and want them to have good housing,” Bexar County Re-entry Program Manager Debra Jordan said in an email to the San Antonio Express-News.

Fonseca has family members here in San Antonio, but said he doesn’t want to burden them by asking if he can live with them. He also wants the freedom of his own place.

After vacating his prior address because of the landlord’s plans to sell, Fonseca and a friend lived in a car for months. That ended when a hit-and-run driver crashed into the vehicle, he said. He and his friend are now staying temporarily with one of her family members.

“I’ve been having this problem off and on for a long time,” Fonseca said. “Once I move from a place, I know I’m going to have a hard time finding another place.

“I want to get back into the mainstream of society. I want to be productive. But how can you do that when … they’re stopping you from making any progress?”

Finding housing is the biggest challenge that former offenders face once they are released from prison or jail, said Suzi Malone, a re-entry specialist at the county’s re-entry program. It’s more difficult than finding a job or obtaining transportation, she said.

And often, even when they find a place willing to accept them as tenants, there can be a waiting period for a vacancy. “It can be anywhere from a couple of days up to several years,” Malone said.